Luenberger observers for discrete-time nonlinear systems

In this paper, we consider the problem of designing an asymptotic observer for a nonlin-ear dynamical system in discrete-time following Luenberger's original idea. This approach is a two-step design procedure. In a first step, the problem is to estimate a function of the state. The state estimation is obtained by inverting this mapping. Similarly to the continuous-time context, we show that the first step is always possible provided a linear and stable discrete-time system fed by the output is introduced. Based on a weak observ-ability assumption, it is shown that picking the dimension of the stable auxiliary system sufficiently large, the estimated function of the state is invertible. This approach is illustrated on linear systems with polynomial output. The link with the Luenberger observer obtained in the continuous-time case is also investigated

Generalized Parameter Estimation-based Observers: Application to Power Systems and Chemical-Biological Reactors

In this paper we propose a new state observer design technique for nonlinear systems. It consists of an extension of the recently introduced parameter estimation-based observer, which is applicable for systems verifying a particular algebraic constraint. In contrast to the previous observer, the new one avoids the need of implementing an open loop integration that may stymie its practical application. We give two versions of this observer, one that ensures asymptotic convergence and the second one that achieves convergence in finite time. In both cases, the required excitation conditions are strictly weaker than the classical persistent of excitation assumption. It is shown that the proposed technique is applicable to the practically important examples of multimachine power systems and chemical-biological reactors.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figure

On the equivalence of contraction and Koopman approaches for nonlinear stability and control

In this paper we prove new connections between two frameworks for analysis and control of nonlinear systems: the Koopman operator framework and contraction analysis. Each method, in different ways, provides exact and global analyses of nonlinear systems by way of linear systems theory. The main results of this paper show equivalence between contraction and Koopman approaches for a wide class of stability analysis and control design problems. In particular: stability or stablizability in the Koopman framework implies the existence of a contraction metric (resp. control contraction metric) for the nonlinear system. Further in certain cases the converse holds: contraction implies the existence of a set of observables with which stability can be verified via the Koopman framework. We provide results for the cases of autonomous and time-varying systems, as well as orbital stability of limit cycles. Furthermore, the converse claims are based on a novel relation between the Koopman method and construction of a Kazantzis-Kravaris-Luenberger observer. We also provide a byproduct of the main results, that is, a new method to learn contraction metrics from trajectory data via linear system identification

About stabilization of non-minimum phase systems by output feedback

This thesis work has been motivated by an internal benchmark dealing with the output regulation problem of a nonlinear non-minimum phase system in the case of full-state feedback. The system under consideration structurally suffers from finite escape time, and this condition makes the output regulation problem very hard even for very simple steady-state evolution or exosystem dynamics, such as a simple integrator. This situation leads to studying the approaches developed for controlling Non-minimum phase systems and how they affect feedback performances. Despite a lot of frequency domain results, only a few works have been proposed for describing the performance limitations in a state space system representation. In particular, in our opinion, the most relevant research thread exploits the so-called Inner-Outer Decomposition. Such decomposition allows splitting the Non-minimum phase system under consideration into a cascade of two subsystems: a minimum phase system (the outer) that contains all poles of the original system and an all-pass Non-minimum phase system (the inner) that contains all the unavoidable pathologies of the unstable zero dynamics. Such a cascade decomposition was inspiring to start working on functional observers for linear and nonlinear systems. In particular, the idea of a functional observer is to exploit only the measured signals from the system to asymptotically reconstruct a certain function of the system states, without necessarily reconstructing the whole state vector. The feature of asymptotically reconstructing a certain state functional plays an important role in the design of a feedback controller able to stabilize the Non-minimum phase system